


How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Game

by thrace



Category: Imagine Me & You (2005)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 01:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thrace/pseuds/thrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luce loves Rachel.  Rachel loves football.  Luce and football are working on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Game

**Author's Note:**

> I've left Rachel's club unnamed so you can imagine whoever you like. I'm basing their blue kits on Luce calling the #9 in red a wanker. Written for femslash12 for such_heights on DW.

Luce has never been much for sport but after taking Rachel to their first match (rather, being taken there by Rachel) she’d thought she would quite happily sit through a hundred matches just to watch Rachel going passionately red in the face from yelling. Two matches later and she knows just how deadly wrong she was.

Rachel is not decked out in a full kit like some of the other fans in the stands around them. She has limited herself to a blue-and-white striped scarf but that hardly matters when she’s yelling at some poor man down on the pitch that he is a very poor defender and should leave the premises, politely speaking. It also doesn’t help that she has learned to project, for which Luce has only herself to blame.

Just before halftime, Luce says “I’ll get us some drinks, babe.”

Rachel gives her a look of pure adoration. “You’re the best.” And for a moment Luce thinks it’s worth it to sit through two continuous hours of yelling and the occasional shove and not being able to see because the people in front of her have stood up. Then she gets into the drinks line under the stadium where she gets jostled by the rest of the drinks-going crowd until a young man who isn’t looking where he’s going, intent on chanting with his mates, turns into her just in time to give her a nice, extra cold Guinness shower. They stand there staring at each other for a moment, he in apologetic horror and her in resignation. Then he attempts to pat her dry with his scarf. She declines the offer, ignores the boy’s friends as they murmur about how she ain’t a half-bad bird and perhaps he should invite her to drink with them, and goes to the ladies’ room to dry herself. She does not get the drinks.

“Hey, just in time for kicko—what happened to you?” asks Rachel.

“Accident. Collision with some youths,” says Luce. The Guinness went straight down her jacket and has soaked her all the way to her jeans. She’d only been able to pat herself dry so much and she’s still rather damp, not to mention the huge splotch on the front of her jeans that her jacket can’t hide. 

“Do you want my coat for the second half?” offers Rachel.

“I think it might be better to go home and change,” says Luce.

“Oh, sure,” says Rachel and Luce is relieved at thought of Rachel’s warm, dry flat, until Rachel hands her a key ring. “It’s the silver one,” she says, pointing to the right key. “You remember how to get back?”

Luce hadn’t considered for a second that Rachel wouldn’t take her back home, dry her off, and then perhaps ravish her. “Er, yes,” she says.

“I’ll be there in about an hour and a half,” says Rachel, then snaps her head back towards the pitch as the whistle goes off.

A breeze ripples through the stands. Luce shivers.

*

Heck gave Rachel his membership in the club when they split. Whether he didn’t want to be reminded of Rachel anymore or didn’t care for football as much, Rachel had offered it to Luce, who had accepted without thinking, and had therefore consigned herself to a full schedule of matches. 

Evidently Rachel had been on her best possible behavior during their first sort-of-not-really date, giving Luce the impression that she was the kind of rational person who went home when her girlfriend had been soaked through and it was 4 degrees out. So Luce had thought it would be good fun to go to matches with Rachel, to watch her sing and shout and hop in frustration when her side missed or raise her arms in exultation when they scored. Not so.

*

One of Rachel’s first gifts to her is a blue-and-white scarf to match hers which Luce at first finds utterly charming. Rachel surprises her with it one day, draping it around her neck and pulling her close for a kiss. “Now you look a proper fan,” she says. 

Luce had been excited to wear it, to sit with Rachel and look like she belonged in that personal space that meant so much to her. Now, as Rachel impugns the parentage of a hapless referee who has evidently made quite a bad call, Luce tries not to cover her face with her scarf while shrinking into her seat. After all, she wants to be with Rachel, and that means warts and all. If by warts she means bursts of slightly apoplectic rage.

After the match Rachel is still muttering about the call and Luce feels she has to say something, because she understands that she should be mad but not why. “Rachel,” she says, and Rachel looks up from her fish and chips, which she’d claimed she deserved after a game as rubbish as the one she’d just witnessed.

“Yes babe?” says Rachel, half a vinegary chip dangling from her mouth.

“What’s the offside rule?” asks Luce.

Rachel nearly chokes on her chip.

*

Rachel explains it to her patiently and doesn’t judge her for not knowing something that she’d never had to learn in the first place. But she does make Luce recite it back to her like a schoolgirl until she has it right. Luce resents this treatment until Rachel rewards her with a long, happy kiss. There could be something to this football thing after all, she thinks, and wonders what other rules she should ask about.

*

At least Rachel being a football fan makes holidays and anniversaries dead easy. When all else fails, Luce springs for club merchandise and when she gives Rachel her very own personalized blue kit, Rachel doesn’t even put it on because she’s too busy jumping on Luce.

“It’s perfect it’s perfect it’s perfect,” Rachel chants, peppering Luce’s neck with little kisses. But then she stops and grabs Luce’s face in both hands. “But what about you?”

“What about me?” asks Luce, slightly hazy from all the kissing and touching. She still hasn’t stopped going dreamy-eyed whenever Rachel kisses her which Edie says is absolutely revolting.

“You need one too,” says Rachel. 

“About that,” says Luce, trying to sound very relaxed and not at all nervous that Rachel will see it as a rejection. “I feel like football is very important to you and I don’t want to drag you down when you go to games.”

“You could never,” says Rachel. “I love having you there with me.”

She seems so sincere that Luce doesn’t have the heart to discuss it any further. She can endure a little more if it makes Rachel this happy.

*

They go to an away match for the first time. Rachel drives them there and expounds on their opponent all the way up the M1. By the time they get there Luce has learned precisely why the enemy are the inferior team, supported by what sounds suspiciously like a bulleted list with subpoints.

To Luce’s surprise, they’re greeted by familiar faces she recognizes from the stands at home. “All right then, Rach,” says one old man, shuffling past them towards the turnstiles. 

“Isn’t that Bernie?” asks Luce. Bernie sits two rows behind them and had eyed Luce suspiciously when he learned she was replacing Heck, but warmed to her when he saw her gamely attempting to sing along with the crowd, pausing only to glance down at the index cards with lyrics she’d stashed in her pocket.

“He goes to every game, home or away,” says Rachel.

When they find their seats, they’re surrounded by much the same crowd Luce has seen at home games. It’s as though the stands in London have been directly transported to the stadium north. 

The game is a nailbiter. Everything is deadlocked at 0 – 0 for ninety-two minutes and they’re on the verge of running out of stoppage. Luce can feel the tension rising around her, the sharp spike at every missed shot on goal, every defensive blunder that nearly costs them. It’s getting to her in spite of herself and when someone makes a mazy run their part of the stands gradually rises to their feet, standing taller and taller the closer he gets to the goal. There’s a collective intake of breath as he shoots, then the ball whistles cleanly into the netting and they explode, emotions spraying like a confetti cannon.

Rachel grabs Luce around the shoulders, jumping up and down and cheering. She pulls back and kisses Luce full on the mouth, resulting in some hooting but Luce only cares that her knees have gone a bit jelly-like. 

But then—oh, but then. Just as the cheering dies down, in the lull while the ball is being brought back to the center circle, everyone clearly hears a catcall from across the aisle, where the home team supporters are massed in a solid wall of yellow. The word is loud, crisp. “ _Dykes_ ,” someone shouts.

Luce sees Rachel puff up, the physical equivalent of cocking her hat forward for a fight, and reaches pre-emptively for her hand. They haven’t gotten more than the odd sideways glance while they hold hands in public or sit too close in a coffee shop; this is Rachel’s first real confrontation for being in love with Luce and she wishes more than anything that she could just take Rachel home. Rachel is pushing her sleeves up, standing on her seat, about to unleash a tirade the likes of which this stadium has never seen.

But before she can, old Bernie shouts back, “Shut it, you pissant. If I wanted to hear a baby cry I’d’ve stayed at home.”

He’s joined by the others, a wave of blue rising around them. There are shouts for the fellow to reveal himself, to stop being a coward, to call any of them dykes. The stadium security staff are up on their toes and the group in yellow mutters, but settles down, opting to instead pay attention to the restart. 

A minute later it’s all over as the ref blows for full time. The idiot in the next section is forgotten as they cheer again, raising their hands and clapping as their team jogs over to their section to thank them for coming. One of the home guard down in the front row yells at a player, a sharp “Oi!” that gets his attention. He has a hasty conversation with the player, who seems to search the stands, eventually homing in on Rachel and Luce. He pulls off his sweaty uniform and gives it to the man, who passes it back. Willing hands keep passing it overhead until it reaches Rachel, who accepts it with some disbelief. The player winks at her, preens a bit in front of a few flustered ladies, then jogs off.

“Best. Night. Ever,” says Rachel. She clutches the jersey to her chest, heedless of the sweat staining it around the collar and underarms. And then crushes the jersey between her and Luce to plant another kiss on her, thrumming with excitement and the fervor of a fan who has been acknowledged by one of her players. “I love you,” she says breathlessly.

“I love you too,” says Luce, not caring that the filthy jersey is rubbing dirt all over her front. It’s better than Guinness, at least.

*

Her very own kit comes in the mail a week later. Rachel makes her take a picture wearing it and puts it on facebook. Edie calls her to tell her she looks ridiculous and also to ask if they know of any fit and willing female footballers. 

“Can’t talk, Edie, it’s match day,” says Luce. Edie makes sounds of disgust followed by a whipcrack, but Luce can’t hear her. Rachel is in the doorway of their bedroom wearing nothing _but_ Luce’s jersey. “Bye,” she says, and hangs up. To Rachel: “Isn’t that meant to be mine?”

“Earn it,” says Rachel. “It’s two hours until kickoff.”

“I love football,” says Luce.


End file.
